Catchy pop hooks and modern poetic phrases, a light and thoughtful style, and a full-length album of original songs. Tracygirl captures a heartfelt to uplifting range of emotions, with the brand-new album Higher Than Before.
While the title-track from Higher Than Before is an upbeat and inspiring anthem of motivational optimism, the opening track is far more contemplative and uncertain. Dancing in The Twilight sings with softness then falsetto passion, taking us through a story of romantic connection and fear – the relatable worry of losing someone with whom you’ve shared treasured moments. It’s a complex but familiar tale, and it introduces this album in a thought-provoking way.
Eight songs in full make up Higher Than Before, a project blending indie, pop and rock throughout its eclectic playlist. The Place we used to go is instantly different again, a rockier edge and a slick groove met with male vocals and images of ghosts and rusty swings. It’s again familiar but newly arranged, those tools resounding in lyric and tone, and still detectable later as we move into the funkier upbeat rhythm of Slide in Slow Motion.
The mood lifts further still for the biker-rock anthem Rift in My Veins, another huge chorus and lashings of metaphor, which leads us well into the starkly contrasted ambient electro-pop song Midnight Tidal Wave.
The style is uniquely spacious throughout this album, somewhat minimal and programmed, familiar but less loaded than most recent offerings, and the diversity of topic and style is playful and unconfined. These are calling cards of the artist, by all accounts, and should help thread together a growing repertoire over time.
Next we get something of an energising synth-wave eighties explosion, for Midnight Circuit Pulse – a pure instrumental track that’s distinct and welcomed in its looping intensity and intoxicating after-party aura. Then to finish, those slick blues-rock guitar riffs return, to light up the catchy good vibes of an aptly-titled Grind to the Groove.
Making its way up the rankings of indie pop and AI circles online, Higher Than Before is a pop-rock floor-filler collection for the most part, with plenty of variety in both energy and style, and always with those big choruses and poetic meanderings that make up the beating heart of the Tracygirl sound.
